That’s all I kept thinking, over and over again. I got away from Derfort Harbor. From Zakir. From Barden East. From being the painted girl, the harbor’s most expensive saddle.
I got away, with a wayward leap into an unknown boat, captained by a no-nonsense woman. Captain Mara was true to her word. She took me aboard, and I earned that passage every day by scrubbing the salt-stained boards, and coiling rope, and emptying chamber pots, and peeling vegetables.
But I didn’t mind it at all. Because it meant freedom. It meant escape.
I was lucky.
So although I slept in a swinging hammock with blistered hands and a capsized stomach, I was happier than I’d ever been during my entire time in Derfort Harbor. And after weeks of sailing, when the blisters had started to become calluses, and my stomach had learned to stop heaving for every chopped wave and blown-in storm, the ship arrived at Second Kingdom.
Captain Mara put me on a boat and paddled me right to the docks, and even gave me a coin to go with the others I had in a pouch sewn into my dress. She stood in front of me on that dock, where the call of gulls competed with the shouts of sailors, and she tucked the coin right into my shirt pocket that she’d given me and said, “You’ve got terrible sea legs. Best stay steady on solid ground, okay, gold girl?”
She left with a pipe in her mouth, already shouting to her crewmates over the bustle.
And I...I was in Second Kingdom, where the sand was white and the sun was baking, not a single cloud in sight to dump on the city in a flood of fishy rainwater. It was so unlike Derfort, but it was still a harbor, and I had no desire to stay anywhere near one of those.
So I found the first safe-looking passage I could with a family in a cart, and I was lucky, because they were happy to take me with them if it meant a little extra coin in their pocket. They had two young babies who I could help with on the trip, and I didn’t have to worry when I closed my eyes at night.
When I left them, I found a trio of sisters to travel with next, and that’s how it went, my luck staying with me from city to city, always finding women to travel with. I was gawked at, whispered about, some people came up and asked me why I’d painted my skin, but other than that, I was left alone, and I made sure to buy a cloak with a deep hood the first chance I got.
The landscape dried up the further I went into the desert, beaches and palm trees changing to sand serpents and cacti. But I kept going, trying to get as far away from the sea as I could. So long as I was near the ocean, it felt like I was still too close to Zakir West and Barden East.
My luck started to run out with my coin. The further I got from the harbor, the leerier people were of a strange golden girl traveling with them. I had to pay more for them to agree to let me hitch a ride, and that was if I could even get people to talk to me. The further I traveled, the more brutal the desert landscape and the heat became.
I thought it was hot before, but that was at least with the cold ocean air carried in from the beach. Out here, the sun was relentless, the wind hot. Despite the delicate appearance of the silky soft dunes, the sand felt as if it could burn through the soles of my shoes. Water was so expensive that a single bloom sliced off a prickly pear ate up my reserves for both water and food.
Despite all of that, I liked the sun. The way I could tip my head up and feel as if the warmth was soaking into my pores, cleansing each clogged up sodden year I’d spent drenched in Derfort.
But in the desert, though the sun blazed during the day, at night, temperatures plummeted. It didn’t matter that I layered every piece of scant clothing I had. My clothes were no match for the chill that came every time the sun set.
In such desolate terrain, there was nothing there to hold the heat, nothing to block the stripping wind, and it seemed to be an entirely different place when the sun went down. I’d woken more than once with scorpions creeping over my skin or sand serpents slithering in my hair. I’d woken with coyotes yipping in a frenzy as they went in for a kill or with other travelers shouting in a way that made me want to steer clear.
And then, the problem was my back.
I thought it was some kind of sunburn at first, the powerful rays baking right through my shirt and burning the length of my spine. It itched, and my skin peeled layer after layer, leaving me feeling raw.
After the itchiness came the pain. It throbbed from just between my shoulder blades all the way down to the very bottom of my back. It was gradual at first, then it became constant. So bad that I couldn’t even lie on my back to sleep or walk without wincing. And while it continued to peel and itch and hurt, I had to keep going. To try and ignore the pain as much as I could, even though I’d usually collapse into a wrung-out heap by the time I stopped traveling each day.
When the sun set, I got the relief from the burn. The night sky was so clear, its dark face freckled with stars. Those were the nights that I could forget about the pain and remember that I was free.
Free of Derfort Harbor. Free of Zakir. Of what went on at The Solitude.
But I had no idea what I was supposed to do. The only thing I’d ever focused on was getting away. I’d gone as far as I could go. I’d crossed a sea and left the shore to wade through dunes the color of ash, feeling my skin peel away beneath the brutal beating of the sun.
I knew I needed to find a place to stop, but every village I came to, the people were wary and I wasn’t welcome. So I kept going. The severity of my situation truly set in when I slept against the back of a shop, shivering all over, stomach grumbling, mouth parched, a layer of sand gritted over my skin and hair.
I knew no one, had nothing. I’d spent my last coin on filling up my waterskin and a sack filled with nuts and dates. I was tired. Scared. Alone—I had never felt so utterly alone.
And that’s when I found Milly. Or really, when Milly found me.
She jabbed me awake with her walking stick. Stared down at me with one milky eye and told me to come with her.
I was going to bolt. I knew better than to just trust someone, especially when you had no money or items to barter your safety with. But even though she was blind in one eye, Milly must’ve seen that on my expression, because she said, “Run off if you want, but I got rabbit in the kitchen and water in the well. Don’t have a building to sleep up against, but I’m sure the bed will do.”
I sat there, stunned, taking in the silver gleam of her hair, the way her shoulders stooped so that her body was in the shape of a teapot—bent elbow leaning on her cane just like a handle.
“What?” I asked, wiping the tangled hair out of my face as I looked up at her, my knees bent, worn boots tucked beneath my dress.
“How old are you, girl?”
“Fifteen.”
“Hmm.” She leaned even more on her cane, the cheeks of her lined face making little C shapes on either side. “You break some kind of law? Steal something?”
I shook my head while she glowered at me. “Well, alright then. Let’s go.”
I gaped at her, trying to think of all the ways she might be tricking me. Before I could figure it out, she turned around and started to hobble away, skirts swishing at her calves, silver hair tucked into a tight braid.
When I didn’t move, she looked over her shoulder at me. “Well? You gonna sit there on the street all night and get pecked at by vultures? Or are you coming? Because I got a bad hip and worse patience.”
I’d like to say I had some gut instinct telling me I could trust Milly and that’s why I went with her, but the truth was, I just really wanted that rabbit and water.
Milly led me to a mule hitched to a cart on the dark street, and I sat beside her as she took the reins and plodded us away. When the street ended, when the cluster of village buildings was left behind, she still guided us on, tired hooves clomping through the sand, just a sliver of a crescent moon lighting up the way.